Compose and argument for or against the topic ‘That every text has its used-by date.’
Consider your prescribed text’s ideas, language and form, and its reception in different contexts.

Through the study of the works of William Butler Yeats in the current year, we can grow in an understanding of his poetry and its ability to transcend time, like the artwork of Byzantium and the beauty of nature depicted in many of his poems including ‘Sailing to Byzantium’, ‘Byzantium’ and ‘The Wild Swans at Coole’. Evidently, the statement “That every text has its used-by date” would therefore be incorrect due to the transcending nature of Yeats’ poetry through its ability to be understood, accepted and appreciated, so far from when it was composed through its ability to become more accepted over time due to social changes. Whilst Yeats rejected the modernist approach to poetry, preferring to keep traditional stanzaic forms and metres, Yeats shares authoritarian hostility to modern society, as seen in ‘The Second Coming’, depicted also in much of the Modernists work. Although these opinions along with many of Yeats’ ideas of the philosophy of the world, contributed to many controversial readings within different contexts, this does not negate the value of the poems. Their ability to still be analysed and seen as individual emphasise how untrue the statement: ‘Every text has its used-by date” really is.

While Yeats was looking into the transcending nature of the Byzantine artwork and the beauty of nature, his own poetry grew to encompass all that he was looking for in that it has surpassed his own mortality. The fact that we still, today study and appreciate his poetry emphasises how far from the truth the statement ‘that every text has its used by date’ really is. As W. H. Auden wrote in a poem titled ‘In Memory of W.B.Yeats’: “Your gift survived it all”

This encompasses the power within his poetry. His poems have ‘survived it all’ due to their underlying themes which are still relevant in today’s society. ‘The Second Coming’ exemplifies this notion that his themes correlate with those of today’s society and is also an example of where he appears to take on the ‘modernistic’ style with the lack of rhyme and structure which emphasises the chaos within the poem – just as the modernists used free-verse to emphasise the chaos and decay within society. ‘The Second Coming’, although depicting Yeats’ philosophy of the gyres and the epochs lasting 2000 years, we also see a reflection of our own society within, as we too are slipping further and further from Christianity: “The falcon cannot hear the falconer”

The ‘falcon’ being society and the ‘falconer’ being Christ, and as the gyres widen, we lose touch with Christ and ‘cannot hear’ his ruling, depicting the loss of Christianity which had been such a prominent part of the daily lives up until the 1800s. Today, with a lesser understanding of the dominance of Christ, we may not be able to understand these symbols and their power as Yeats meant for them. But such themes relate directly to our own lives, in that we too are awaiting ‘the end of the world’ or as we know it and Christians are still awaiting the ‘Second Coming’ of Christ. “… a vast image of Spiritus Mundi…

A shape with a lion body and the head of a man”Such a ‘Christ’ image questions what we believe, with connotations of the Sphinx, the origins of civilisation. Such a creature appears to be not of human form, this same image is one of the four beasts of the Apocalypse, inferring that the end is already upon us. ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ encompasses themes relevant to our own society – the want for an escape. Yeats wishes to be transported out of mortality ‘Into the artifice of eternity’, just as everyone wishes to escape a monotonous lifestyle, into their own imaginary world.

Although Yeats rejected the modernist approach to poetry, preferring to keep traditional stanzaic forms and metres, we see similar views to the...

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...adage; “People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of their mind.”
Sailing to Byzantium is perhaps one of Yeats’s best poems, written in the third phase of his career. As Eavan Bland once said, “this poem represents an immortal fury against the tragedy of decay and the inevitability of death.” Sailing to Byzantium confronts the problems posed by advancing age. Yeats found the idea of bodily decay and decrepitude intolerable and in this poem, he outlines a means to escape, to travel in imagination to an ideal place, in which he will be exempt from decay or death, a civilization in which he can spend his eternity as a work of art. It is a definitive statement about the agony of old age. Yeats is out of place in a world teeming with youth and vitality where “the young” are “in one another’s arms,” where “the salmon falls” and where there are “mackerel crowded seas.” The tension between his reality and his concept of paradise is created through the antithesis of the young and old, his frustration with the process of age. Yeats develops this concept of the emptiness of old age in relation to the life of the sense. Confronted with youth, animation, energy and vitality, the old man is “but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick.” We see the imaginative and spiritual work required for him to remain vital, even though his heart is “fastened to a dying animal.” His attempt to overcome...

...﻿William Butler Yeats/Irish history.
Yeats’ parents, Susan Pollexfen and John Butler Yeats, offered Yeats kinship with various Anglo-Irish Protestant families who are mentioned in his work. Normally, Yeats would have been expected to identify with his Protestant tradition—which represented a powerful minority among Ireland’s predominantly Roman Catholic population—but he did not. Indeed, he was separated from both historical traditions available to him in Ireland—from the Roman Catholics, because he could not share their faith, and from the Protestants, because he felt repelled by their concern for material success. Yeats’s best hope, he felt, was to cultivate a tradition more profound than either the Catholic or the Protestant—the tradition of a hidden Ireland that existed largely in the anthropological evidence of its surviving customs, beliefs, and holy places, more pagan than Christian. Yeats spent much of his boyhood and school holidays in Sligo with his grandparents. Silgo - its scenery, folklore, and supernatural legend - would colour Yeats’ work and form the setting of many of his poems.
In 1890, Yeats founded the ‘Rhymers Club – the poets of the ‘tragic generation’. The group as a whole matched quite closely Yeats' retrospective idea of 'the tragic generation', destined for failure and in many cases early death. Along with the social...

...but along with the likes of Shakespeare and Dickens, William Butler Yeats stands among the few writers whose work has been engraved permanently onto the walls of English literature. It is through Yeats’ exploration of themes such as the passing of time, fragility of human life and the inevitability of death teemed with the exploration of the idea of destruction and its relevance in all societies have enraptured readers of the modern century. Yeats’ writings have immortalised him, so he may never be forgotten by civilisation, and perhaps it is the immortalisation that we as humans aim for, so to search for answers in his work contributes to our longing to live, and his longing to remain.
The rising and setting of the sun is our only constant, time is our only continuum, and the search for more time has lead us to answers of which Yeats has attempted to address. Philosophically, scientifically and religiously, we are all searching for answers on how it is we should spend our time here on earth. It seems that time has almost become taboo as our search for the answer is never a constant, fluid nor discernable outcome. Yeats was one of the many scholars who explored this concept, and perhaps this is why his work continues to engage readers- because it confronts ideas of the concept of time, and the dimensions in which it exists. After examination of his poem ‘The Second Coming’ as a whole, it is evident...

...Samantha Clark
Forster
ENLT 2523
19 September 2011
Yeats and the Everlasting
“Everything exists, everything is true and the earth is just a bit of dust beneath our feet,” writes the famed William Butler Yeats on one of his favorite subjects: eternity. Yeats’s poetry often deals with the conflict of the temporal and the eternal. The chronology of Yeats’s life allows for a very interesting exploration of this conflict—coming of age at the end of the nineteenth century, Yeats’s literary career spans both the close of the romantic and the beginning of the modern eras of poetry. Yeats thus presents an interesting body of work in which he moves from an almost archaic style to one less flowery and embellished (clearly influenced by Ezra Pound). Despite the evolution of style, though, Yeats continually returns to the temporal and eternal as central contrasting themes in his work. From “To the Rose upon the Rood of Time,” in which a young Yeats appeals to the eternal rose to save him from the temporal world and its woes, to the much later “Sailing to Byzantium,” in which an older Yeats, cognizant of his death, entreaties the artists of the Hagia Sophia to immortalize him in one of their famed mosaics. Humans back to the age of Gilgamesh have feared death, but Yeats’s use of eternity stems less from fear and more from desire. His constant juxtaposition of the temporal and the eternal reflects...

...piece of poetry.
W. B. Yeats has been called the chief exponent of the Symbolist Movement in England. His poetry abounds with symbols. He used both emotional and intellectual symbols in his poems. And his symbols are taken from such diverse source as Irish folklore and mythology, magic, alchemy, and the occult disciplines, philosophy, metaphysics, paintings and drawings. Yeats believed that symbols are given, not deliberately chosen or invented. The symbols used in his earlier poems are elementary and cause no obstacles in the way of the readers. But as he developed as a poet, his symbols become more complex, inconclusive, personal and individual.
Yeats’s poem ‘A Prayer for My Daughter’ is marked by his use of symbols. In the poem, he uses his symbols through a series of images like wind, sea and tree. The storm itself is a symbol of ruin and misery, and the woods and trees are the obstacles before the ruining power. The violence of nature —“the murderous innocence of the sea”— is symbolic of the violence of man which is calculated and inexorable. It also recalls the violence of the 1919. Again, “Assault and battery of the wind” symbolizes reversal of luck. Yeats also draws symbols from mythology. Here Helen stands for destructive beauty and is linked up Deirdre and Maud Gonne. The “rich horn of plenty” is suggestive of courtesy, aristocracy and ceremony. And the “hidden laurel tree” can provide through custom the radical...

...﻿September 1913:
- Expresses Yeats’ frustration over how violence is not the way forward, however peaceful Ireland is ‘with O’Leary in the grave’ and all that is left is violence.
- Significant date, general strike where workers were shut out of factories as their employers did not want to acquiesce to better working conditions / wages
- Materialism infected merchant’s minds
Form:
- Ballad, has a clear chorus
- Popular form in Irish Culture
- One ofYeats’ most sarcastic poems, he chooses this form in order to mock
- ABAB Rhyme Scheme, simple structure and strong rhyme carry political messages better.
John O’Leary - died in 1907
- Founder of Young Republic Brotherhood
- Yeats was influenced by him- revolution could be born of art
Stanza 1: -
Against the apathy of business owners in Dublin
A direct retaliation to the general strike
He is disgusted by the business owners, as they are undermining the true Romantic Ireland.
Quotes: - “But fumble in a greasy till”- untrustworthy, corrupt, greed of the owners, became shiny due to the over-use
“And add the halfpence to the pence / and prayer to shivering prayer” – Money and religion is all they care about, pence is such a small amount emphasise their greed, forgotten to care about Ireland. Not meant to be ‘shivering’ praying is warm
“For man were born to pray and save”- Ironic as ‘save’ people or money. ‘Pray’ is a pun for prey
“Romantic Ireland’s dead and...

...
William Butler Yeats
On June 13, 1865 the erie town of Sandymount, Ireland welcomed William Butler Yeats, who later becomes a legend in modern English literature. In 1867 his family moved to London, but he frequently visited his grandparents in Northern Ireland. There he was immensely influenced by the folklore of the region. Eventually in 1881 his family returned to Dublin. There Yeats studied at the Metropolitan School of Art, getting increasingly more focused on literature, and later evolving into one of the greatest Symbolist poets of his time. Being a Symbolist poet, he uses allusive imagery and symbolic structures throughout his career to captivate generations to come. Its fair to propose that Yeats is generally considered one of the twentieth century's key English language poets after accomplishing more than three-hundred and seventy poems and eight plays (Yeats 1, 1).
Yeats is an important author in English Literature for numerous reasons, some can go on and on about how his accomplishments influenced the lives of numerous individuals, even his home country. But in a literary perspective Yeats is an important author for the mere fact that he can chose words and assembled them in a manner that implies particular meaning, while at the same time suggesting other abstract thoughts that may seem more significant and resonant (Ulanov, 66). “His use of symbols is...

...Themes in Yeats’ poetry
You can find many themes in Yeats’ poetry. Pick what suits your own study from the themes, comments and quotes listed below. There are 86 quotes used to illustrate themes on this page (although some of them are from poems outside the current OCR selection for AS Level). You will need only a short selection of these.
1. The theme of death or old age and what it leaves behind.
Death of Patriotism, leaving selfishness as the norm: ‘Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave’ [September 1913]
Death as useless sacrifice, Home Rule might be granted: ‘Was it needless death after all? For England may keep faith For all that is done and said’ [Easter 1916]
A man in old age alienated vibrant youthfulness: ‘The young in one another’s arms, birds in the trees – Those dying generations – at their song’ [Sailing to Byzantium]
Death of innocence: ‘The ceremony of innocence is drowned’ [Second Coming]
The self in old age, forsaken by beauty: ‘when I awake some day to find they have flown away’ [Wild Swans]
Death chosen out of a sense of despair: ‘A waste of breath the years behind, in balance with this life, this death’ [Airman]
Death and destruction during civil war: ‘A man is killed, or a house burned … the empty house…’ [Stare’s Nest]
Demise of the Aristocracy and despair at the vanity of human grandeur: ‘We the great gazebo built’ [Memory]
Old age and the remnants of a confined life: ‘Picture and...